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COVID-19 vaccine: 18,000 doses discarded due to ‘absurd’ stance
A decision to discard the last quantities in vials of the COVISHIELD AstraZeneca vaccine, amounting to an estimated 18,000 doses, under the current vaccination programme has raised serious concerns in the health sector.
At least 18,000 doses, which could have vaccinated 18,000 people, may have already been thrown out, even as the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) and other experts urged that an extra dose could be extracted from each vial.
The NMRA has informed the Health Ministry that each vial, which is recommended for use in the country, contains at least 10 doses. However, it is normal for liquid to remain in the vial after withdrawing the 10th dose.
“When low dead volume syringes and/or needles are used, the amount remaining in the vial may be sufficient for an additional dose or two and that can be used,” the NMRA has said in a letter to the Health Ministry on February 6, even as many experts had met ministry officials to convince them about this matter the previous day (February 5).
While reiterating that care should be taken to ensure that each person being vaccinated gets 0.5 ml, as stipulated, the NMRA has said that where a full 0.5 ml cannot be extracted from the vial in the final stages, the remaining volume should be discarded. The vial should be used within six hours of withdrawal of the first dose (stored at 2°C to 25°C) and any unused amount should be discarded.
Both paediatricians and physicians have also gone into detail to explain the technicalities between the manufacturer’s instructions and the ability by skilled administrators of the jab to extract the last quantity available in a vaccine vial.
A clinician skilled at vaccinations told the Sunday Times that the whole issue lay with epidemiological officials who were attempting to stick “strictly and absurdly” to manufacturer recommendations, even though these extra doses could be utilised for medical students and private sector healthcare workers who are in the risk category, while also preventing higher doses being given to the first 10 who get their doses from the same vial.
“There was confusion over drawing the liquid from the vial. The debate that the vaccine should be drawn into the syringe until there are ‘clicks’ and giving the vaccine thereafter without expelling the air or the extra vaccine back into the vial shows the poor understanding of those setting the rules,” another clinician added.
A team of experts is going round hospitals, looking into how the vaccinations are being administered to make a call on this issue, it is learnt, while there were howls of protests that this is causing further delays and more volumes of the vaccines would be discarded.
Reports from the United Kingdom indicate that the Head of Immunisation at Public Health England has stated that it is possible to get an extra dose out of vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine, while the Scottish government has informed its health sector that the UK’s drug regulator held the same view. This is while the European Medicines Agency has also recommended how six doses may be extracted from a single vial.